Mercy Jenkins is a free woman, at last! Never again will she enter into a relationship without thinking it through. Never again will she be swept off her feet without some way to anchor herself firmly. Never again will she let a man have control over her heart. She really should have known better...

Brant Carver is home for a holiday, not by choice. Going out for a night on the town with his brother is exactly what he needs to help him forget why he’s on vacation. Not once did he figure that he’d end up waking in Mercy’s bed, or forgetting how he got there.

Mercy made a choice to be upfront with Brant about the consequences of their one and only night together. What comes next proves they both have a second chance at love.

Be Warned: anal play

“Come on, Brant. It’s a holiday, not like it’s a prison term.”

Turning a glare on his youngest brother, one that had made grown men piss their pants in the past, he growled. The little shit didn’t even flinch, just smirked at him. Joshua Carver, youngest male of the Carver family, was a pain in his ass and always had been. He loved the kid, but damn if he didn’t wish he’d smothered him when he was little.

“It’s a forced holiday, not something I wanted. If I’d wanted a holiday in the midst of my biggest fucking case, I’d have taken it. The fucking brass seem to think that I’m an idiot and don’t see what they are doing,” Brant practically snarled out.

“So, what are they doing?” Joshua asked.

He had to look carefully at his brother, but all he saw was an honest inquiry to the trouble. Shit. He’d been too long undercover if he had to see if his own baby brother was yanking his chain. Maybe the brass was right. Maybe he did need a break. Nah, he thought a moment later, they just wanted him out of the way.

“The director’s brat was transferred into the main office two weeks ago. The kid’s been working in various field offices to gain experience. In reality, he’s been making waves, and had numerous reports written up on him. Those are permanent parts of your records, unless of course your daddy is the Director of the DEA.”

“So his old man had them wiped?” Joshua asked. He carried two mugs of steaming black coffee to the table and handed one to Brant. Accepting it gratefully, Brant took a sip and let out a happy sigh.

“No, they can’t be wiped once they are in the system, but they can be buried. His old man slapped a “classified” notation on them with some bullshit security level that means only the Directors of the agencies, DEA, FBI, etcetera, can open them. That or the President of the United States, of course.”

“Of course,” Joshua parroted, rolling his eyes.

Pretty much how Brant felt on the situation.

“So, the big boss gets his kid back under his thumb to keep him in line after all these reports are filed on the shit. What’s that got to do with you being forced out mid-operation to take a vacation? I mean, you look like you could do with a couple days to decompress, but not a month, bro.”

“It’s a big case, huge, headline making,” Brant said. He saw it click for his brother a moment later, Joshua’s eyes going huge. “Exactly. If the little shit makes a name for himself off my hard work, and eight years of undercover work, blood, sweat, and frustration, then all that bad stuff just vanishes from everyone’s thoughts. He’ll be known for taking down one of the biggest cartels around. He can ride that at a desk in any office anywhere in the world, and literally never have to do an ounce of work again until he retires.”

“Fucking hell, what a load of bullshit!” Joshua got up from his chair, and paced to the counter before spinning to look at him. “So this little piss ant is going to get all the credit for the last decade of your life? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Eight years,” he said. Chuckling at the glare he got, Brant shrugged. “I have no say on it, bro. I might be top dog in the field, but when it comes to office politics, I’m just the fodder they throw into the path of the drug cartels to slow them down and to make good headlines so the brass can shine.”

“Shit,” Joshua muttered. He had his hands braced on his hips as he glared at up at the ceiling, shaking his head slightly. “So, and this may be nothing more than my head doing its thing, but what happens if the kid fucks up the whole thing? Like, he goes in and the cartel ends up killing him?”

“Then his daddy will know he should have listened to the fodder when he said the kid was too cocky, too green, and will die. The only good thing is that my name’s been removed from everything on the case except for some initial work at the beginning. The boss’s brat’s name’s on everything now. Which means, when he fails, and he will, then Daddy can’t save his ass ever again. He’ll be blackballed at best, dead at worst. If he lives through this, he’ll be lucky to get a job flipping burgers at some truck stop in the backwoods of Croatia.”

Joshua was frowning at him. “How do you know your name’s been wiped off everything?”

“Because I made sure it was. If they want to take my op away, fine. If they are going to pass it off as someone else’s then I don’t want any association with it. If he crashes and burns, he will crash and burn alone. Plus, if the kid fucks this up even half as bad as I think he will, then his daddy will be forced out too for shaming the agency. I also made sure that all the other agents on the case had the little shit’s name on their documentation too. No one is throwing this back on me when the kid gets killed. Not that I’m hoping he does, but he’s too full of himself to see where the threat will be coming from.”

“Fuck,” Joshua said. Shooting him a glare, he shook his blond head.

“Nothing to be done about it,” Brant said. He knew better than to keep beating a dead horse. He was pissed, would be for a good fucking long time, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it when the Director of the DEA said he was out. Not like he could go whining to the President of the United States about the director favoring his snotty-nosed little turd of a son.

“Well, we’re not going to fucking sit here and bitch about it. Let’s head over to The Shanty. We can drink a little, flirt with the ladies, and then drink some more. I’ll get Ali to come and rescue our drunken hides at some point. She’ll do it. She’ll give me grief, but when I lay this on her, she’ll fully understand.”

Get drunk without having to worry about someone trying to kill him? What a novel concept. Brant hadn’t had a night out on the town in too long. A few trips during his time in the Rangers with the other guys, but that had been a rarity.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. “Fuck yeah, why not? I haven’t had a good night out drinking in forever. Be nice to have to be poured into my bed for once instead of pouring someone else into theirs.”

Getting to his feet, he went over to his brother. “If you wake me up at the fucking butt crack of dawn tomorrow, I will kill you. I will snap your little neck and bury your body out in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one will be able to prove I did it. Ever. We clear?”

Joshua was laughing at him and just shrugged. “At least you don’t have to be up before dawn. I do, so I’m going to stop drinking as soon as the room starts spinning. If I drink any more than that, I’ll be hurting all day tomorrow. To ease your mind, big brother, I won’t be waking you up.”

“Good enough for me. Let’s go,” Brant said. He checked his pockets for his wallet and keys, in case he needed to be the one to let them back into the house. His hand brushed over the small of his back and he had to hide the flinch. He didn’t have a weapon on him. He fucking felt naked without it, but he couldn’t go around carrying it on him while he was on vacation. Not that he didn’t have his service weapon with him. It was just packed away, out of sight and out of mind.

Mostly. Sighing, he scrubbed a hand through his short, dark blond hair. “First round’s on me,” he told Joshua.

“Hot damn.” His brother smirked. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

Laughing softly, he followed Josh out of the house and to the truck. It was going to be good to get out, see some of the folks he’d grown up with, and just relax for a couple of hours. He’d likely regret it tomorrow, but that was tomorrow and this was today. Fuck tomorrow.

Review Companies

MR Review
Rating:
Reviewer: Alberta
Review:

Zyon is a new author to me & she seems quite prolific. It’s hard to keep things fresh when you put out some many books at a time, or close together. Sometimes they begin to sound more formulaic than you would think. This one is set in Massey TX, as are several others in this series.

Mercy has finally extricated herself from a monster marriage, & has moved to Massie to start over. Brant is being shoved out of the undercover job he loves, because the director wants his own son to take over Brant’s work & look like a hero.

Inevitably Mercy & Brant meet, & flames result as they get to know each other better. Of course, there are bad guys & lots of hot sex, but it’s not one of the best that I have read of Zyon’s.

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